LEÓN

 CITY OF LEON:ROMANESQUE CHURCH+PAINTING 

The basilica de San Isidoro de Leon is a church in Leon.The original Church was built in the pre-Arab period over the ruins of a temple to the Roman god Mercury. In the 10th century, the kings of León established a community of Benedictine sisters on the site.

Following the conquest of the area by Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir (938-1002), the first church was destroyed and the area devastated. León was repopulated and a new church and monastery established in the 11th century by Alfonso V of León.

The church also benefited from its position on the famous pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. Sculptors, stonemasons and artists from across Europe gathered to work on the monastery.

WHO WERE SAN ISIDORO?

556-Seville, April 4, 636) was a Catholic ecclesiastical and polymath Hispanic scholar of the Visigothic period. ... He is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church and counted among the Fathers of the Church. It is also one of the Four Saints of Cartagena.

ANALYSIS OF THE CHURCH

LAYOUT: LATIN CROSS SHAPE AS A SYMBOL OF JESUS CHRIST CRUCIFIXION.

HEAD:there an apse that connect the two sides naves

CROSSING: HERE THE TWO MAIN BODYS CONNECT.THE ALTAR IS LOCATED HERE COVERED BY A DOME THAT HAS AN OCTOGONAL SHAPE(8=∞) AND WITH SEVERAL SMALL WINDOWS TO ILLUMINATE THE ALTHAR 

THE CENTRAL NAVES ARE COVERED WITH BARRELT VAULT AND THE SIDES NAVES ARE COVERED WITH GROIN VAULTS.

MAIN  ENTRANCE: IS VERY DECORATED WITH 

SCULPTURE TO TAKE THE ATTENTION OF THE 

PEOPLE.

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It is the first known tympanum of the Kingdom of León, containing various scenes. It belongs to the full Romanesque of the eleventh century. It is sculpted in white marble and rests on jambs that are topped by ram's heads.The Sacrifice of Isaac is represented with the mystical lamb held by two angels, and on both sides two other angels carrying the symbols of the Passion of Christ. In Mozarabic Hispania it was very common to represent the scene of the sacrifice of Isaac instead of Christ crucified.

It is built in smooth marble.The weight go to the walls that are going to be reinforced with buttresses.In cause of this the windows are going to be small  

PAINTINGS OF THE CHURCH OF SANISIDORO (LEON)

Technique: tempera painting after preparing the wall with white stucco Take advantage of the stucco for the background and the black stucco to draw or outline and the inscriptions.

 PANTOCRATOR

ANALYSIS:

 The main objective of Romanesque painting is to enlighten believers about the content of sacred scriptures, turning the image into a vehicle for intellectual communication.

The rest of its formal characteristics derive from its religious composition: compositional symmetry, rigidity, its expressive hieraticism, the frontality of the images, and the intensity of the color, whose luminosity is a reflection of a symbolic spirituality.

From the iconographic point of view, Christ appears as Judge, framed in a mandorla where the letters alpha and omega are inscribed, symbols of the beginning and end of all things. Located at the top of the apse, it presides over an environment that reproduces the image of the Celestial Jerusalem, which would come to represent the triumphant Church.

The attitude of the Pantocrator is the usual one, blessing with one hand and carrying in the other the sacred book with the words of John: "Ego sum lux mundi" ("I am the light of the world").

Around Christ appear the four Tetramorphs (the Lion of Saint Mark; the Man of Saint Matthew; the Bull of Saint Luke and the Eagle of Saint John), whose symbols are held by angels.

City of León: Gothic Cathedral

Introduction:

Santa María de León Cathedral, also called The House of Light or the Pulchra Leonina is a Catholic church in the city of León in north-western Spain. It is one of the most relevant examples of the Gothic style in Spain. It was built on the site of previous Roman baths of the 2nd century which, 800 years later, king Ordoño II converted into a palace.Almost all of it built between 1205 - 1301, the north tower and cloister were built in the 14th-century, and the south tower completed in 1472.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Layout: It´s a gothic cathedral with the shape of a latin cross but it has 2 naves more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• It is best known for its stained glass windows. With at least 1,764 square meters of surface, most of it containing the original windows, it is one of the most extensive and best preserved collections of medieval stained glass in Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the first time that the two bell towers are separated so we can see that the weight goes to the walls and the flying buttresses 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although they are not as visible as the stained glass windows, the sculptures or the façade’s reliefs, one of the attractions of León’s Cathedral are its amazing gargoyles, stone representations of real animals, hybrids, demons, anthropomorphous or simply geometric designs which stand out of the cloister’s walls, façades and other exterior temple’s areas. Of enigmatic symbolism and great decorative value, the function of the gargoyles is none other than to expel the water from rain that falls on roofs and corridors. For this reason, they are often confused with other stone figures —the so-called chimeras or grotesques— such as the famous by Viollet-le-Duc in Notre Dame. With the help of the doctor in History of Art, Dolores Herrero, and the photographer, Jordi Custodio, we invite you to know these enigmatic stone creatures which seem to watch the Pulchra from above.

 

It’s a ceiling made of stone with a round shape